will distil, by a chemical process still unexplained, the wax
required for the immediate construction of buildings. They will
provide themselves also with a certain amount of propolis, a kind of
resin with which they will seal all the crevices in the new
dwelling, strengthen weak places, varnish the walls, and exclude the
light; for the bees love to work in almost total obscurity, guiding
themselves with their many-faceted eyes, or with their antennae
perhaps, the seat, it would seem, of an unknown sense that fathoms
and measures the darkness.

[16]

They are not without prescience, therefore, of what is to befall
them on this the most dangerous day of all their existence. Absorbed
by the cares, the prodigious perils of this mighty adventure, they
will have no time now to visit the gardens and meadows; and
to-morrow, and after tomorrow, it may happen that rain may fall, or
there may be wind; that their wings may be frozen or the flowers
refuse to open. Famine and death would await them were it not for
this foresight of theirs. None would come to their help, nor would
they seek help of any. For one city knows not the other, and
assistance never is given. And even though the bee-keeper deposit
the hive, in which he has gathered the old queen and her attendant
cluster of bees, by the side of the abode they have but this moment
quitted, they would seem, be the disaster never so great that shall
now have befallen them, to have wholly forgotten the peace and the
happy activity that once they had known there, the abundant wealth
and the safety that had then been their portion; and all, one by
one, and down to the last of them, will perish of hunger and cold
around their unfortunate queen rather than return to the home of